Posted on 06/18/2012 5:59:20 PM PDT by Hojczyk
Is Russia a growing threat? Radio talk show host John Batchelor, offers insight. "We have tentative and alarming news of major military exercise
Video
http://video.cnbc.com/gallery/?video=3000097085&play=1
Larry Kudlow isn’t a ‘liberal’.
Kudlow is a converted Catholic.
He could ask for pray, not ask for prayer, or demand prayer.
The ‘if you will’ is asking.
I’ve seen plenty of Freepers ask for others prayers, is it really that odd?
Maybe they refloated the one Rudel sunk with his STUKA in Lake Ilmen.
I looked at the daily intelligence summary that Putin looked at yesterday, and here’s what it said:
“Obama is the biggest pussy in the history of the United States, and Romney looks like he’s going to be the second biggest pussy. Go ahead and do what you couldn’t in the 80’s - take out the Saudi’s, the Jews, and then Europe.
The Chinese will take Taiwan, and when we’ve cleaned all that up, we’ll go after the US. Or we may get impatient and just nuke them now - like that gigantic pussy is going to launch a counter strike.”
My two cents is protect their base and keep everyone else out of getting involved in Syria..
You’ve pretty much got it.
There are two reasonable scenarios here.
1. Putin is wary of our continuing military interventions in the Arab world, and is responding with his own intervention to prevent the balance of power shifting top far in our favor.
2. Putin and Obama have secretly made their Molotov-Ribbentrop pact, dividing which countries the socialist US government will intervene in, and which countries the socialist Russian government will intervene in. Hence, the US refusal to take action on Syria and silence on Russian actions there.
From what I know of Putin, both scenarios are probably equally correct, since I think, no matter what agreements he has made with the Obamunnist, he would hedge his bets and act in whatever way furthers his interests, knowing there will be no consequence.
I guess there are still a few of these old ships around...this one, the Mikasa, was the flagship of the Japanese fleet at Tsushima Straits. She somehow survived WWII (one can imagine American aviators in 1945 seeing that thing and planting bombs on it, just to be sure) and Admiral Nimitz helped fund her preservation after the war.
Interesting stuff.
The Bible says it does not end well for the forces there.
There will be no consequence is the key.
Putin knows it. Flexibility , The Russians have it now.
Our boys did a good job abiding by that list so Japan got to keep (some) of their culture.
With a few notable exceptions, Russian naval developments belong in Mad, not Janes.
Like most of Hitler's crazy ideas it never got beyond the sketch stage.
The Stuka gets a lot of bad press, but it was the deadliest naval dive bomber in WWII, with more confirmed kills than the Dauntless, Helldiver or Japanese Val.
I didn’t know that...thanks for the info!
Yes, if the 'drone' is in the form of a USN Virginia class submarine that just sent a couple of MK48 ADCAP Mod 7 CBASS to break the back of the ship. However, if you mean a UCAV somehow managing to fly within range and drop ordnance on the ship that is a strong 'no.'
For two or three Drones to sink a Kirov they would also have to be able to sink a Tico or an Arleigh Burke. If you don't think that is possible then it will be just as impossible for a UCAV to do the same to a Kirov. For one I doubt it would be able to penetrate the air kill zone of the S-300 complex on the ship, and even if it did (say it is some super-stealthy vaporware) there is nothing current drones carry that can sink the world's largest combat ships (that are not aircraft carriers). The purpose of the Kirovs in Soviet cold War doctrine was to survive long enough to launch their nuclear-tipped Granits against US aircraft carriers. Now, the length of time they would survive was VERY limited (as was the case of every single sea-surface platform, from Soviet Kirovs to USN Carriers, if the Cold War ever went hot), but the Soviets tried to push that survival time a bit by basically making the thing into the world's largest anti-aircraft and anti-sub platform (136 SAMs and 102 sub-rocs). All to ensure it would have an opportunity to fire at least some of its 12 Granits. A UCAV wouldn't make it close, and even if it did there is nothing it would be able to do.
Source?
...and what type of kills?
I know a few things about the Stuka, and particularly the anti-shipping variant.
The anti-shipping version of the Stuka was a long range version, the Ju-87R. It had the Ju-37B airframe with an additional oil tank and fuel lines to wing stations for two 300L drop tanks. This increased fuel capacity to 1,080 litres (500L in main fuel tank of which 480L where usable + 600L in the drop tanks). To prevent overloads, bomb carrying ability was often restricted to a single 250 kg (550 lb) bomb if the aircraft was fully loaded with fuel.
Many times, less fuel was loaded and a single 500kg bomb was carried if larger targets were expected.
There was also a modification in the fuselage which enabled that additional oil tank. This was installed to feed the engine due to the increase in range.
A modified version later strengthened the airframe to ensure it could withstand dives of 600 km/h. In addition, a new, more powerful engine, the Jumo 211D in-line engine was installed. The Ju-87R had a decreased speed (by about 30km/h) and a decreased ceiling from other Stukas. But it had an increased range of 360 km.
The total JU-87R production was 972 aircraft.
In the 1939 Poland Campaign, naval stike Stujas sank the 1540-ton destroyer ORP Wicher and the minelayer, ORP Gryf of the Polish Navy, both moored in harbour when attacked and sunk.
In Norway in 1940, Stukas caught the 735 ton Norwegian destroyer Æger off Stavanger and hit her in the engine room and she was run aground and scuttled. HMS Bittern was sunk on 30 April. The French large destroyer Bison was sunk along with HMS Afridi May 3, 1940, during the evacuation from Namsos. Bison’s forward magazine was hit, killing 108 of the crew. Afridi, which attempted to rescue Bison’s survivors, was sunk with the loss of 63 more sailors.
During the Battle of Dunkirk, quite a few Allied ships were lost to Ju-87R attacks. The French destroyer Adroit was sunk on 21 May 1940, followed by the paddle steamer Crested Eagle on 28 May. The British destroyer HMS Grenade was sunk on 29 May and several other vessels damaged by Stuka attack. By 29 May, the Allies had lost 31 vessels sunk and 11 damaged. The Royal Navy lost 29 of its 40 destroyers (8 sunk, 23 damaged). In total, 89 merchantmen (126,518 tons) were lost as well. This was where the vast majority of Stuka success against shipping ocurred.
In the Mediterannean, on 10 January 1941, Stukas delivered six hits with 500kg bombs to the HMS Illustrious aircraft carrier and three damaging near-misses but the ship was not sunk and made it to Malta and safety.
In the battle for Crete, the Stukas had their other significant success of the war. On 21 May, the destroyer HMS Juno was sunk and the next day the battleship HMS Warspite was damaged. That same day the cruiser HMS Gloucester was sunk, with the loss of 45 officers and 648 sailors. The Stukas also crippled the cruiser HMS Fiji, while sinking the destroyer HMS Greyhound. As the Battle of Crete drew to a close, the Allies began to withdraw. On 23 May, the Royal Navy lost the destroyers HMS Kashmir and Kelly, followed by HMS Hereward on 26 May; Orion and Dido were also severely damaged.
These were all of the major engagements credited to the Stukas. There may be more singel attacks and the like...but this amounts to:
Merchantmen sunk = 90
Minlelayers sunk = 1
Destroyers sunk = 19
Destroyers damaged = 25
Cruisers sunk = 1
Cruisers damaged = 1
Batttleships sunk = 0
Battleships Damaged = 1
Aircraft Carriers damaged = 1
Aircraft carriers sunk = 0
The US Navy Fast Carriers sank a lot of Japanese carriers, battleships, cruisers, detroyers and merchant vessels. I have not done the research on them...but if you think of all the engagements, it was one heck of a lot of ships that were sunk in the open sea , close in to shore, and in port.
As you saw, not too many Stukas attacks even occurred on capital ships of cruiser size or larger and of these, one cruiser was sunk, one damaged, one battleship damaged, and one carrier damaged.
I am willing to bet that those Stuka numbers do not come close to either the total number of ships or tonnage sunk by US carrier aircraft.
The Japanese sank and damaged a LOT of US and British ships too... particularly in the first two years of the war. I would be surprized if those above numbers for the Stukas were more than the Japanese numbers, either in total numbers or tonnage too.
I may do the specific research to show it...but my guess is that the tonnage and total numbers will be hugely larger for US SBD Dauntless or SB2C Helldiver aircraft.
And probably a good bit largher for the VALs.
And this all makes since. The European war was principally a large land war. The Pacific war was a huge naval war where the principle means of stopping either side was to stop its ships which were carrying troops to every major engagement.
BTW, as stated, 975 anti-shipping Stukas were built.
Over 5,000 SBD Dauntless were built.
Over 7,000 SB2C Helldivers were built.
The numbers alone will tell you that a lot more ships were sank by thoswe vast numbers of aircraft.
As to the Japanese VAL, about 1,500 were built.
The Jaopanese also built 2,000 Judy Divebombers which we haven’t taken into account...though the VAL saw the most service and due to the many victories through June of 1942, sank the most vessels.
OK, I haven’t found the break out for the SBD or SB2C, but here is the Pacific totals of the Dauntless and the Helldiver Navy and Marine aircraft operating off of aircraft carriers (These are from the NAval History and Heritage Command, Department of the Navy):
Japanese Naval Vessels sunk - 161 (711,235 tons)
Japanese Merchant Vessels sunk - 359 (1,390,241) tons
That’s over 500 vessels and over 2 million tons sunk by those two aircraft types. I believe both would account for many more numbers and tonnage than the Stukas.
This does not include Marine aircraft operating from shore (Particularly the Dauntless was operated from shore) or any sinkings (and there were quite a fwew) in the Eurpean theter off NOrway or in the med or Atlantic).
So the actualt totals are higher.
I will try and find some numbers for the VAL.
Hi Jeff, my response of “I didn’t know that” was directed towards the “no-bomb” edict for the Mikasa, not the shipping losses attributed to the Stuka.
When I read that post, I had the same incredulous reaction of “That can’t be right!”
Now, I always did think the Stuka was a iconic aircraft, but I would definitely not have pegged it as having sunk more shipping than US Naval aircraft in WWII.
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